I also tried all methods except what you described above. Did you add cashews to your "milk", and did you use a yoghurt as starter, or did you buy a starter?

Yep, followed Miyoko's recipe exactly, using the soaked cashews, and 3T of leftover yogurt (have used So Delicious Coconut with success, and this time it was Nancy's, which I'd purchased in a pinch) + soy milk. Nancy's on its own is sweet, but makes no difference in the large batch, from my experience (or maybe I'm not that discerning).

From Miyoko's forum:

"The yogurt has to be maintained at 110 degrees for 4 – 8 hours, or it won’t thicken. It can’t just reach it, then cool down. Try wrapping the jar in a warm blanket or towels, and set put it in an oven that has been heated then turned off. Are you using soy milk? It won’t thicken in the refrigerating – the yogurt bacteria only grow in warm temperatures."

But in the book it says it can stay by a sunny window, or a warm corner in the kitchen...granted, I have no AC and it can get hot in my kitchen, but it is not 110 degrees....I am confused!

I also tried all methods except what you described above. Did you add cashews to your "milk", and did you use a yoghurt as starter, or did you buy a starter?

Yep, followed Miyoko's recipe exactly, using the soaked cashews, and 3T of leftover yogurt (have used So Delicious Coconut with success, and this time it was Nancy's, which I'd purchased in a pinch) + soy milk. Nancy's on its own is sweet, but makes no difference in the large batch, from my experience (or maybe I'm not that discerning).

From Miyoko's forum:

"The yogurt has to be maintained at 110 degrees for 4 – 8 hours, or it won’t thicken. It can’t just reach it, then cool down. Try wrapping the jar in a warm blanket or towels, and set put it in an oven that has been heated then turned off. Are you using soy milk? It won’t thicken in the refrigerating – the yogurt bacteria only grow in warm temperatures."

But in the book it says it can stay by a sunny window, or a warm corner in the kitchen...granted, I have no AC and it can get hot in my kitchen, but it is not 110 degrees....I am confused!

Hi, there, Miyoko here. Yes, the book does say that, but it also says that the temperature of 110 must be maintained. That might mean wrapping it well and putting it in a sunny window during the summer. Or it could mean wrapping it well and putting it in a warm corner of the kitchen (by the oven, for example). When I learned to make it 4 decades ago in Egypt, the Egyptian cook simply wrapped the jars, wrapped them, and put it on the counter. You have to remember that yogurt has been made for thousands of years before technology and yogurt makers. But you have to figure out how to maintain the temperature. During the summer at my house in California, I wrap the jars in a single towel and put it outside during the day. 4 - 6 hours later, it's set. But in the winter, that doesn't work, so I have to resort to using other devices, such as setting the jars in a slow cooker filled with water, or in a low oven (my oven will go down to 100 F). Unless you buy a yogurt maker, there are no exact instructions other than you have to maintain the temperature. Some people use an electric blanket, others a down alternative comforter.

I will play around with it. When I was a kid, my mother used to make yeasted dough for various purposes and tuck the dough into my bed to let it rise. Sometimes I would hang out with the dough to make it warmer. I guess if the end product is worth, you do what you have to do. ;)

Hello, new member here. I recently got the book and started my first cheese making process this week. However, my blender is just not capable of blending cashews smoothly so I turned them into a paste with my coffee grinder and then mixed with the liquid in the blender. Turned out very smooth but I think the grinder heated the cashews in the process. Do you think it would still work well, even if the "rawness" of the cashews is ruined by the heat?

Right now, it's been about 24 hours and the mixture seems to look okay (no mold or anything) but it does have a strong smell, like that of the rejuvelac. I'm wondering if it's gonna be safe to eat. Thanks in advance!

Ps My rejuvelac seemed to be fine, tasted lemony, but it did have a strong fermented smell.

Hello, new member here. I recently got the book and started my first cheese making process this week. However, my blender is just not capable of blending cashews smoothly so I turned them into a paste with my coffee grinder and then mixed with the liquid in the blender. Turned out very smooth but I think the grinder heated the cashews in the process. Do you think it would still work well, even if the "rawness" of the cashews is ruined by the heat?

Right now, it's been about 24 hours and the mixture seems to look okay (no mold or anything) but it does have a strong smell, like that of the rejuvelac. I'm wondering if it's gonna be safe to eat. Thanks in advance!

I think it sounds fine. There's no way to give an exact amint of time it takes. It all depends on the environment and other factors. Many of the cheese are heated, and raw cashewa aren't really raw, anyway, as the nut must be heated, anyway, to extract and kill a toxin. The only issue would be if the nut mixture were so hot after adding rejuvelac that some of the lactic acid bacteria were to have been killed. That might allow some unwanted pathogens to grow, rather than lactic acid. But I would guess that your mixture is fine.

Ps My rejuvelac seemed to be fine, tasted lemony, but it did have a strong fermented smell.

I had just taken the rejuvelac out of the fridge, so hopefully it managed to endure the heat from the cashews. The mixture didn't get any mold (yet) so hopefully it worked. Even if it doesn't work, I'll make sure to let them cool down before mixing next time. Thanks a lot for the speedy response, I really appreciate it!

When I was a kid, my mother used to make yeasted dough for various purposes and tuck the dough into my bed to let it rise. Sometimes I would hang out with the dough to make it warmer. I guess if the end product is worth, you do what you have to do. ;)

Ha! That's a cool story (appreciated by someone whose mother NEVER made anything from scratch...)

Turns out the mixture was fine! 2 days of culturing and it tastes great. The cashews i bought were sorta yellow-ish even though i asked for raw, so the cheese looks yellow. I'll make sure they're really unrosted next time. (Or maybe turning them into cashew butter first makes them darker?)

Only thing is, while culturing the top of the mixture formed a bit of a crust - is this normal? I covered with a glass lid, making sure to leave a bit of space on the sides for it to "breathe". Maybe I should have covered it tighter?

Last edited by bulutsenel on Mon Sep 09, 2013 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

However, my blender is just not capable of blending cashews smoothly so I turned them into a paste with my coffee grinder and then mixed with the liquid in the blender.

I, too, am using two devices to grind my cashews finely enough: food processor, then blender (because the blender really struggles to turn the blades with the minimal liquid). That is really doing the trick (compared to my first batches of cheese, which were a tad grainy from using my blender only).

And here I thought I was getting a blender to last me for eons (Oster 60th Anniversary beehive blender, which is evidendly NO MATCH for soaked cashews...!)

During the summer at my house in California, I wrap the jars in a single towel and put it outside during the day. 4 - 6 hours later, it's set. But in the winter, that doesn't work, so I have to resort to using other devices, such as setting the jars in a slow cooker filled with water, or in a low oven (my oven will go down to 100 F).

Yep, despite my sucess with the overnight oven process, I tried the towel-wrapped jars in the sun during this heat wave we're having. And boo, it separated. So I'm sticking with the oven.

Have you heard about a new rejuvelac cheese on the market in Los Angeles? It's called Nary Dairy and it's amazing. Creamy and spreadable. Multiple flavors. I got some at Erewhon. Also, I have read about very short expiration dates with Rejuvelac, but my experience is it lasts a long time. Why do you think the warnings?

This might be a dumb question, but I'm currently making my rejuvelac and was at the part where you are supposed to divide the grains in half in quart jars and add 3 cups of water to each. I didn't have two quart jars, but I did have one gigantic jar, so I just added 6 cups of water to all of the rice. That's okay, right? I figured it was written that way because most people don't have huge jars, but will already have some smaller jars or containers hanging around, though I could be wrong and be ruining my rejuvelac

I made the Pub Cheddar with Chives over the weekend. Everything was going fine until I got to the cooking step. I had no carageenan, so I used agar. The cheese never set up and is more of a loose cream cheese consistency than a sliceable one. Also, I've noticed that once I had agar to the cheeses, they become grainy and there's nothing I can seem to do about it.

So, what am I doing wrong? Am I overcooking the agar? And if I used carageenan instead, would it eliminate the graininess problem? I'm so frustrated!

Oh, but I should say that the cheese does taste very good, so there's that!

I made the Pub Cheddar with Chives over the weekend. Everything was going fine until I got to the cooking step. I had no carageenan, so I used agar. The cheese never set up and is more of a loose cream cheese consistency than a sliceable one. Also, I've noticed that once I had agar to the cheeses, they become grainy and there's nothing I can seem to do about it.

So, what am I doing wrong? Am I overcooking the agar? And if I used carageenan instead, would it eliminate the graininess problem? I'm so frustrated!

Oh, but I should say that the cheese does taste very good, so there's that!

Unfortunately, you can't add agar to a cheese directly. It has to be dissolved by boiling in a liquid first. So yes, the graininess would have been eliminated had you used carrageenan. However, next time you make this, just forget adding any thickening agent at all, and just cook it, then wrap it in cheesecloth. Let it air dry in your fridge for a couple of weeks in the cheesecloth, and it will be sliceable. :)

I think rice is one of the tougher ones to get a good rejuvelac going. I'm in Las Vegas and mine took about 4 days whereas with quinoa I had rejuvelac in a day and a half or so. If it were me, since you started already, I'd keep it going for another day or two until you get that lemony scent. If it goes off I think you'll be able to smell that also. If it doesn't work, go with quinoa. It for sure seems to be an easier grain to use.

Does anyone do anything with their quinoa or other grains or do you just end up discarding them?

Does anyone do anything with their quinoa or other grains or do you just end up discarding them?

One time, my husband turned the leftover, sprouted quinoa into a kind of tabbouli dish, but sadly we weren't big fans. He said he found a recipe online that told him the quinoa did not need to be cooked, but I honestly felt like that was the whole problem with the dish. It was like eating raw, yet soggy, quinoa and it didn't work for me.

When using rejuvelac, if in the end your cashew cheese has properly cultured withot any mold, does it mean that the rejuvelac is not contaminated?

I made cashew chevre and also yogurt with it with apparent success, however there's a flavor that may not be right. (I made the rej. using buckwheat, so i thought maybe it leeched some of its strong flavour in there)

Does anyone do anything with their quinoa or other grains or do you just end up discarding them?

One time, my husband turned the leftover, sprouted quinoa into a kind of tabbouli dish, but sadly we weren't big fans. He said he found a recipe online that told him the quinoa did not need to be cooked, but I honestly felt like that was the whole problem with the dish. It was like eating raw, yet soggy, quinoa and it didn't work for me.

But maybe if you cooked it, then it would work?

I was most concerned if there was a safety issue, but it sounds like it can be done. It just seems so wasteful to throw out perfectly good quinoa! I'm sure the interwebz will tell me more...

Hey guys, I've gone through about half this thread and see there have been lots of questions on the rejuvelac step but somehow I don't see this one yet.

I used quinoa and it sprouted in about 1.5 days. At this I transferred to two separate jars adding 3 cups water each. The liquids became very cloudy immediately. After only about another 1.5 days they had an incredibly strong smell, very much like Dr Cow cashew spreadable cheese. However, when I tasted it there was almost no taste. I kept it going for the 3 full days and it still has an incredibly pungent smell but very little taste. I went ahead and bottled and refrigerated already figuring I shouldn't let it sit out too long. I'm curious for the next batch if this happens again, does anyone else have experience with the rejuvelac having little flavor but strong smell? Does it still work well when creating cheese as is, should I have let it sit longer, or perhaps there's a step in the preparation I should change?

Made the American Oat Cheese (pg 50) yesterday. Turned out great and was easy to make. Had it in a grilled cheese today.

I'd like to attach a picture but can't. Can anyone help?

Also made the macadamia ricotta, which turned out great too. Stuffed them into pasta shells with spinach

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